Ninety-eight percent of climate scientists – the people who do the peer-reviewed research – dispute Register's contention on climate change. If 98 out of 100 doctors told you that you have cancer, you'd start the chemo treatment. If 98 out of 100 airplane mechanics said that a plane was unsafe to fly, you wouldn't board it.

In 1981, Dr. James Hansen published a paper in “Scientific American” stating that warming over the past century had been consistent with the effects of anthropogenic CO2 release. He also predicted that the climate-change signal would rise above the noise (weather) by the end of the century, which happened.

The last sentence of that paper is: “Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and Central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.”

Sound familiar?

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DANA POINT, Larry Hamlin: The excellent editorial, “Alarmism, not climate, grows more extreme” [Sept. 12], addresses much of mainstream media's obsession with pushing climate-alarm propaganda while that media conceals from the public critical empirical climate data that demonstrate media claims about alleged links between climate change and natural variation in weather events is pure conjecture.

Also ignored by much mainstream media and concealed from the public is the extraordinary U.S. Energy Information Administration data showing the virtual collapse of growth in U.S. CO2 emissions because of market force-driven increased use of natural gas. As a result, in 2012, decreasing CO2 emissions have rapidly moved to levels not seen since the early 1990s.

Thus the climate-alarmist mainstream media is focused on pushing unsubstantiated climate-fear propaganda while excluding and concealing from the public solid scientific empirical data that demonstrates the failure of any linkage between climate change and natural weather events as well as the fact that the U.S. simply has no role in increasing global CO2 emissions.

An economic jump-start

MISSION VIEJO, John Bartiromo: The Federal Reserve recently announced a third round of unconventional monetary stimulus [“Fed tries to spark economy,” Business, Sept. 14]. Chairman Ben Bernanke must think that three times is the charm to jump-start the economy.

I know what would jump-start the economy. President Obama could pay off every American's home mortgage. I understand it would have cost less than the billions he approved to bail out the automakers and the billionaire CEOs. Just think of what Americans would do with an extra $2,000 plus a month to spend on goods rather than paying off mortgages. It makes more sense to politicians to bailout the pond-scum billionaires of General Motors and the like.

That move really got the economy going and people back to work didn't it?

Californians beware

WESTMINSTER, T. Jeske: Know this Democrat backroom scheme for what it is [“Private pension plan divisive; O.C. Watchdog, Sept. 12]. It is a scam meant to get more money from the hard-working people of California. Don't think for one heartbeat that Democrats in the state Legislature are concerned about you or me. They want our money to pay for all of their failed policies and to shore up the massive pension tsunami that will break this great state.

It's just like Social Security where they will spend all of the money up front, put IOU's in our accounts, and then someday when we want our money they'll scramble to come up with it from some other source.

Honor in hard work

MISSION VIEJO, Jim Schneiderman: I agree with most of letter-writer Scott Irwin's points in regard to minimum-wage jobs [“Entry-level wages,” Sept. 12]. Where he and I separate is in his conclusion that “people would opt for existing minimum wage over not having a job.”

The old-guard American worker has undergone a change. We are no longer willing to work hard for low wages. Hard work has become apostasy for the leisure class. Low wages are deemed an insult to those who are accustomed to fast food and flat screens.

At a recent Toastmasters' meeting, I gave a speech about my first wage-paying jobs. I thought back over my many weeks of single-digit paychecks for doing tasks such as newspaper boy, bus boy, hay baler and floor sweeper. All these jobs paid much less than I wanted. They were unimaginative and repetitious. But there was some innate quality that made me rise before dawn and go do them. Plus, my dissatisfaction with those mind-numbing tasks is what drove me on to seek better jobs. I no longer sense that drive in native-born Americans.

The only people I see opting for hard work and minimum wage over unemployment are the newest of Americans – the immigrants. Get back to work Americans. There is honor in work.

An excuse to hate U.S.

LAGUNA BEACH, H.S. Roberts: The Register reports that “Federal authorities identify filmmaker” [News, Sept. 14]. The filmmaker in question is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, purportedly a central figure in the production of “Innocence of Muslims,” a film that supposedly enraged Muslims so much that they felt compelled to attack our embassies in Libya and Egypt, killing four of our citizens including our ambassador to Libya.

Who are we kidding here? The existence of this film is a red herring at best to use as another manufactured excuse for gangs of Muslim militants to attack America. Making this film is constitutionally legal in this country based on our First Amendment, which guarantees free speech and expression.

But what do we do? We impugn the past history of the filmmaker, publicly revealing his name, identity and address, thus putting him and probably his entire family in imminent danger. God preserve us in our ignorance as we work to appease murderers and those who would see us destroyed.

It looks like this next war, which is simply an extension of something centuries old, will be a bad one. Until we come to recognize the reality that these billion-plus people view everything else un-Islamic as “enemy,” I guess we will continue under the delusion that appeasement and self-degradation will accomplish that which is impossible.

Mr. Romney, give details

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Steve Bell: You cannot define something by what it is not. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney should understand that and begin to explain what he would do, specifically, as president and stop telling us that, in general, his plans are not the same as President Barack Obama's are.

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